› added 11 years ago

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TIL next to humans, leafcutter ants form the largest and most complex animal society on earth. They are also agriculture experts, harvesting and feeding grass to a fungus in an amazing symbiotic relationship.

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BrKVy TIL the original Xbox had actual recordings of the Apollo missions in the menu sounds
4bK5 TIL there is an island so densley populated with snakes the Brazilian Navy had it quarantined and a biologist said when on the island “you are never more than 3 feet from death.” That island is called Snake Island.
X077j TIL about the Phantom Time Hypothesis, a conspiracy that suggests that the AD dating system was fabricated to place Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII at 1000 AD. According to this, the years AD 614 - 911 (the early Middle Ages) never happened.
16JjO TIL of Dick Roth, a swimmer who was diagnosed with appendicitis shortly before the men’s 400m individual medley in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. He refused an immediate operation and instead swam in the finals, winning a gold medal.
D16rP TIL we can’t see atoms under an ordinary microscope because atoms are smaller than the wavelength of visible light. The smallest thing we can see with visible light contains 10 billion atoms.